This chapter is from the book

A quickstart guide to Lightroom

Let’s start with a quick overview of how to use Lightroom. I thought that the best way to do this would be to carry out a shoot specifically for this book (Figure 1.14). The idea here was to provide an example of a complete workflow from start to finish, showing how Lightroom can be used to process and manage photos that were taken on a typical studio fashion shoot. Of course, there are lots of ways that you can integrate Lightroom into a photography workflow, but rather than try to introduce every feature in the program, I thought it better to show you the way a photographer like myself uses Lightroom in a studio setting. Hopefully, the workflow that’s described over the following pages will provide a clear insight into what Lightroom does, how it can be used to speed up the way you work, and how best to integrate Lightroom with Photoshop.

Figure 1.14 Here is a picture of me at work, shooting with a tethered cable setup and directly importing the photos into Lightroom.

Importing the photos into Lightroom

There are several ways that you can import your photos into Lightroom. The standard procedure is to insert the camera card into a card reader so that it triggers displaying the Import Photos dialog for configuring the import settings. However, because this was a studio shoot, I chose to shoot in tethered shooting mode (which is described more fully in Chapter 2). With a tethered setup, photos can be imported directly from the camera into the Lightroom 3 catalog.

Before I began shooting any
photographs, I went to the
File menu and chose File → Tethered
Capture → Start Tethered
Capture. This opened the
main dialog shown here (top).
I first entered an appropriate
shoot name for the job I
was about to shoot, selected
a file naming scheme for the
images as they were to be imported,
and selected a destination
folder to download the capture
files to. I was also able to
establish the metadata settings
that should be added to the
imported photos, adding the
keywords seen here. When I clicked
OK in the Tethered Capture Settings
dialog, the middle dialog appeared,
asking me to create a shot
name. I clicked OK, which then
opened the Tethered Capture
control panel (bottom). When
the camera was switched on,
this displayed the current camera
data settings, and the camera
name appeared in the top-left
section. The only settings
that needed adjusting on a shot-by-shot
basis were the Keywords in
the Tethered Capture Settings
and the Develop settings in
the Capture control panel. Once
everything had been configured,
I was able to start shooting
(Figure
1.15).

Figure
1.15 Whether
you prefer to work in
tethered mode or by importing
directly from the camera
card, once the Import
settings have been configured
at the beginning of the
day, you can carry on shooting
and let Lightroom batch
process the photos for
you.

NOTE

By using meaningful names for your imported shoots, you can keep track of where your image files are stored. The same is true if you add keywords and other metadata at this stage. This information will further help with the management of the Lightroom catalog.

Viewing photos in the Library module

The imported images started
to appear in the Library
module, which is shown here
in Grid view. The activity
viewer in the top-left corner
indicates that Lightroom was
actively carrying out a background
process. In this example,
it was importing photos. If
more than one operation is taking
place at a time, you will
see the grouped status indicator
(Figure
1.16). If you click
the small arrow to the right,
you can toggle the status
indicator between each task
that is in progress and the
grouped indicator. The imported
images normally appear in
the grid in the order of preference
(such as sort by filename
or capture time), and you can
make selections of images by
using either the grid or the
Filmstrip at the bottom. In
this example, I rearranged the
order of the photos in the grid
by choosing the descending sort
order option so that the newest
photos appeared first at the
top of the grid.

Figure
1.16 The
status indicator shows
the progress of background
processes such as importing
images or rendering previews.

I now switched to viewing
the photos in the Loupe view,
which allowed me to preview
the images on the screen
one at a time. You can go
to the Loupe view from the grid
by clicking the Loupe view
button, pressing the E key,
or just double-clicking an image
to jump to Loupe view. The
arrow keys on the keyboard let
you quickly shuttle through
all of the images in the
current image selection. To
scroll through a selection without
scrolling the images, just
drag the Filmstrip scroll bar
at the bottom of the screen.
The base magnification can be
set to either fit or fill the
width of the content area, while
the magnified Loupe view can
be set from a 1:4 to an 11:1
zoomed pixels view (yes, Lightroom
goes to 11!). The Loupe view
is ideal for checking photos
for detail and focus and
rating your images. Also shown
here is the Quick Develop panel
for making rough Develop adjustments
without having to switch
to the Develop module.

You can open and close the Lightroom
panels by clicking anywhere on
the panel tab. If you Alt–click
a panel tab, you can switch to
a solo mode of operation, where
clicking an individual tab will
open that panel only and close
all the others. Alt–click
a panel again to restore the
normal panel behavior.

Simplifying the interface

Now let’s look at ways
to make Lightroom’s interface
simpler to work with, as
well as how to hide interface
components and place more emphasis
on the images. If you press
the t key,
this temporarily hides the
two side panels and provides
more space for the photo to
be displayed in the Loupe view.
Press t and
the two side panels are revealed
once again. However, when
one or more of the side panels
are hidden, you can still access
the side panels by rolling
the mouse cursor over to the
edges of the screen. Do this
and the panels are revealed
again. You will notice how the
panels temporarily overlay the
image below, but you can still
access the panel controls as
usual. If you click the little
arrow in the middle of the side
of the screen, you can lock
these panels independently.
When you do this, the image
will center-adjust to reveal
the entire image area again.
The panel rollover behavior
described here can be modified
via the contextual menu (see
side panel). In this example,
I hid the left panels only,
but I could reveal them again
by rolling the mouse cursor
to the left edge of the screen.

The default side panel behavior
can be modified with a right-click
to access the contextual menu
options. The default setting
is Auto Hide & Show where
the side panels auto-reveal and
hide as you roll the cursor to
the sides of the screen. The
Auto Hide option hides the panels,
which will be revealed (overlaying
the image) only when you click
the side arrow. In Manual mode,
you can toggle between hiding
the panels and revealing them
again, but with the content area
resizing to fit the available
space.

So far, I had been working
with the Lightroom interface
in the document window mode.
If you press the F key, the
interface switches to full-screen
mode and expands to fill
the whole screen. Press F a
second time, and the interface
switches to absolute full-screen
mode (shown here) where the
system menu bar disappears and
Lightroom overrides any operating
system rollover behaviors. For
example, on the Mac, the absolute
full-screen mode overrides the
Dock as you roll the mouse cursor
to the bottom or side of the
screen. But you can still access
the system menu bar by rolling
the mouse cursor to the top
of the screen. You can press
the F5 key
to toggle hiding and showing
the Lightroom top panel and
press the F6 key
to hide and show the Filmstrip
at the bottom. In addition,
you can use Cmnd+Alt F (Mac)
or Cntrl+Alt F (PC) to return
directly to the normal document
window mode, or use Cmnd+Shift
F (Mac) or Cntrl+Shift F (PC)
to toggle between a document
window view and a full-screen
view with the top, bottom, and
side panels hidden. Finally,
you can use Shift+Tab to hide
and show everything!

If you ever get stuck in a situation
where you need to reset the interface
layout, press Shift+Tab a couple
of times to restore everything
back to the default layout.

Zooming in

I wanted to stay in the full-screen
Loupe mode with the side panels
hidden, so I rolled the mouse
over to the left of the screen
to reveal the left panel, which
could then be locked into position
(see Step 4). I could then get
the image to zoom smoothly to
a 1:1 or custom magnified pixels
view by clicking anywhere on
the photo. If I clicked the
image again, it would return
to the normal screen view. Whether
you are in Grid or Loupe view,
if you press Z, the image will
be instantly displayed at the
1:1 (or custom) magnified view
mode. Press Z again and the
image reverts to the Library
Grid view. The Navigator panel
can also be used to zoom and
scroll the image. Click inside
the image preview to select
an area to zoom to and then
drag the small rectangle to
scroll the photo. You can also
use z to toggle between
the standard and magnified Loupe
viewing modes.

You can use Cmnd + (Mac),
Cntrl + (PC)
to zoom in and Cmnd– (Mac),
Cntrl – (PC)
to zoom out. This will magnify
the photo from Fit to view, to
Fill view, to 1:4 and a 1:1 magnification.
You can also use Cmnd+Alt + (Mac), Cntrl+Alt+ (PC)
to zoom in using gradual increments
up to 11:1 and use Cmnd+Alt – (Mac), Cntrl+Alt– (PC)
to zoom out again using gradual
zoom increments.

Working in the Develop module

Then I went to the Develop
module so I could initially
adjust the tone and color
in a sample image from the shoot.
If you are accustomed to
working with the Adobe Camera
Raw plug-in in Bridge and Photoshop,
you will already be familiar
with the Basic controls. There
is a lot you can do to correct
an image using the Basic
panel adjustments as well as
the other panel controls, such
as Tone Curve, HSL / Color /
B&W,
Split Toning, Detail, Effects,
and Camera Calibration. On
a busy photo shoot, I typically
use just the Basic panel
controls to fine-tune the white
point and adjust the tone controls
such as Exposure and Blacks.
In this example, the White
Balance tool is shown hovering
over the image. I could have
used this to click in the backdrop
area and correct the blue
cast, but it so happened I quite
liked the cool-blue effect,
so I left this as it was. Once
I like the effect achieved using
the Develop adjustments, I may
choose to save these as a custom
preset for future use (Figure
1.17). For example,
if you refer back to Step 1,
you’ll remember I mentioned
how you can apply custom
Develop settings via the Tethered
Capture panel. By saving custom
Develop settings for a particular
look, you can apply these via
the Tethered Capture panel at
the time of import. The same
applies for regular camera card
imports via the new Import dialog.

Figure
1.17 You can
save your favorite Develop
settings such as camera-specific
Develop settings as presets.

Synchronizing Develop settings

Once I had adjusted the Develop
settings to get one photo
looking the way I liked, I was
able to synchronize the Develop
settings with all the other
photographs from the same shoot
sequence. To do this, I selected
the photos I wanted to synchronize
via the Filmstrip. (You can
briefly pop back to the Library
Grid view, if you find this
easier.) I made sure the image
I wanted to synchronize from
was the most selected image,
and clicked the Sync button
to synchronize all the other
selected photos with this photo
(Figure
1.18). Note that
Lightroom offers unlimited
undo options, so you can always
choose Edit → Undo or Cmnd+Z
(Mac) or Cntrl+Z (PC) any time
you need to revert to a previous
step. If you want to redo
a step, use Cmnd+Shift+Z (Mac)
or Cntrl+Shift+Z (PC). The
History panel offers even more
flexible control, allowing you
to preview and revert to any
of the history steps associated
with the image; plus, the history
states always remain stored
with the photo. I’ll explain
more about History and Snapshots
in Chapter 6.

Figure
1.18 Develop
settings such as the
Spot Removal, Crop, and
Straighten settings can
be selectively synchronized
across other images.

Reviewing and rating the photos

So far, this first set of
photos had been added to the
catalog using the Tethered Capture
setup so that the photos ended
up in the designated folder
location, with a new filename
and IPTC and keyword metadata
added. The tethered import process
applied an initial Develop setting
that I had later updated by
synchronizing a new Develop
setting across the selected
photos belonging to this first
shoot series. I was now ready
to start reviewing the pictures
and mark which ones were the
favorites. You can do this in
the Develop or Library module,
but the Library module is faster
for this type of editing. By
now, Lightroom should have processed
all the photos to create standard
previews, but if not, you can
always go to the Library menu
and choose “Render Standard-sized
previews.” I could rate
the images in different ways.
I could rate the best images
using the flag system (pressing
P to mark a photo as a flag
pick), or I could use the numbered
rating system. In this example,
I pressed 1 to mark photos with
a 1-star rating, 2 to mark those
that deserved a 2-star rating,
and so on. In the above screen
shot, all the 1-star and higher
images were currently selected.

Use Cmnd+D (Mac) or Cntrl+D
(PC) to deselect a Library selection
of images, and use Cmnd+Shift+D
(Mac) or Cntrl+Shift+D (PC) to
select the most selected (or
active) photo only.

Making contact sheet prints

I am often required to provide
clients with contact sheets
from a day’s shoot (Figure
1.19). This is
where the Draft Mode Printing
option in the Print module
comes in handy. In the example
shown here, I kept the same
selection of images active
and picked a modified contact
sheet print template from the
Template Browser panel. Lightroom
displays a preview of the contact
sheet that contains the currently
selected images, and the
Info overlay indicated here
that I was looking at page
1 out of 3 printable contact
sheet pages. For speedy printing,
the Draft Mode Printing option
was checked in the Print
Job panel. This grayed out
all the other options, meaning
that I would need to turn on
the printer’s color management
option when I configured
the Print Settings and make
sure I used a correctly matched
media/paper type setting.
I’ll
discuss the Page Setup and
Print Settings options in Chapter
10. Note here that the Windows
version of Lightroom shows
just a single Print Settings
button.

Figure
1.19 Some
clients like having contact
sheets of the 1-star
rating and higher images.
This is because they
can edit the photos anywhere
without the need for
a computer; plus, they can
write notes on the contact
sheet prints.

Reviewing the final shortlist in Survey mode

Contact sheets aren’t
always necessary, but as
you can see in Figure
1.20, it does make
it easier for clients to
spread out the contact sheets
on a table and compare all
the shots at once. If there
is time to go through the pictures
on the computer, you can always
do so using the Loupe view.
Whichever method you use,
the goal will be to narrow down
a selection of photos so
that you end up with a shortlist
of favorite images from which
you may wish to select just
one or two final candidate
shots. At this stage I often
find it useful to switch to
the Survey view in the Library
module (N). The main advantage
of working in the Survey view
is that you can easily compare
all the shortlisted photos at
once and the individual images
are displayed as big as possible
on the screen. This is because,
in Survey view, the selected
images are automatically resized
to fit within the content area.
If you want to inspect a particular
image in close-up, you can double-click
to open it in Loupe view and
double-click (or press N) to
return again to the Survey view
mode. When you are in the Survey
view, you can Cmnd–click
(Mac) or Cntrl–click (PC)
on an image to remove it
from the current selection
and thereby whittle down the
remaining selection of images
to choose from. In the example
shown here, I managed to refine
the selection down to a choice
of 11 photos.

Figure
1.20 This shows
me sorting through a
set of contact sheet
prints before giving them
to the client.

Dimming the lights

It can sometimes help to work
with the program interface subdued
or hidden. To this end, Lightroom
has the Lights Dim and Lights
Out modes. These two viewing
modes allow you to dim or hide
the interface so you can focus
more on what is going on in
the photographs, yet still have
easy access to the interface
when you need it. To see how
these work, press the L key
once. This switches Lightroom
to a Lights Dim mode (which
is the view shown here). The
Lights Dim mode just darkens
the interface so you can still
see (and access) all the Lightroom
controls and menu items. Pressing
L a second time takes you to
the Lights Out mode, and then
pressing L again takes you back
to the default viewing mode.
Note that if you roll the mouse
to the top of the screen, you
can still view the menu bar
at normal brightness.

The default Lights Dim and Lights Out modes use varying opacities of black. If you go to the Lightroom Interface preferences (see page 16), you can set the Lights Out screen color to other shades of gray and adjust the dim level opacity. This is useful if you prefer to view your images isolated against a light neutral gray instead of a solid black.

Saving the shortlisted photos as a collection

Once ratings or flags have
been added, you can easily make
filtered shortlist selections.
However, you can only do this
to reveal the filtered photos
in one folder at a time or when
filtering, say, a keyword selection.
To save groups of images from
different filter search results,
you’ll need to use collections.
In other words, you can use
collections to save groups of
images that have portfolio potential
by selecting groups of photos
from two or more shoot folders.
In the example shown here, I
made a selection of all the
2-star or higher images and
pressed the B key to add these
to the Quick Collection section
of the Catalog panel. Quick
Collections are useful for creating
temporary image groupings, but
if you want to make a collection
more permanent, you can click
the plus button in the Collections
panel to add a new collection
to the list. Collections can
be used to store module-specific
attributes; plus, you can set
up Smart Collections to automatically
add photos to a collection based
on set criteria. For more about
working with Collections, refer
to Chapter 4.

You can use the Filter bar at the top of the content area to filter photos by ratings higher than, lower than, or by a specific rating only. You can also filter photos according to flag status or color labels, and the text search field can be used to carry out text-based searches.

Retouching a photograph in Lightroom

Once you have decided which
photos have made the final shortlist,
the next stage will be to take
them through to the photo finishing
stage before making a final
print output. The Develop tools
in Lightroom have come a long
way from the early days of Adobe
Camera Raw for Photoshop. You
can carry out the majority,
if not all, of the adjustments
that are needed to prepare an
image ready for retouching.
Lightroom even provides tools
for making localized image adjustments
using the Adjustment brush or
Gradient Filter tools. In this
step, I made a few fine-tuning
adjustments to the Basic panel
settings. I then used the Adjustment
brush tool to apply a darkening
exposure adjustment to the hair.
Finally, I used the Spot Removal
tool to remove a couple of sensor
dust spots that were visible
in the backdrop area.

The localized adjustments also let you apply other types of adjustments to a photo such as darken, boost the saturation, add clarity, or colorize portions of a photo.

Editing a copy in Photoshop

Even though there is a lot
you can do in Lightroom,
it will usually be necessary
to use Photoshop to carry
out the more detailed retouching.
In the example shown here,
I went to the Photo menu
and chose Edit in Photoshop
(Cmnd+E [Mac], Cntrl+E [PC]).
How the photo opened would depend
on how the Edit options were
configured (see sidebar).
For example, the photo shown
here opened as a ProPhoto RGB
16-bit image. I then used my
Photoshop skills to tidy up
some of the loose hairs and
smooth out the skin tones. When
I was done editing, I chose
File → Save,
which saved the image using
the preconfigured file format
setting and added
the photo to the Lightroom
catalog in the same folder
location as the raw original.

The external editor options
are discussed on page 13 of this
chapter as well as in Chapter
9. Basically, you can establish
the RGB space, bit depth, and
file format options that should
be used whenever you use the
Edit → Open in Photoshop or Edit → Open in additional external editor options.

Creating a Web photo gallery

The Web module can be used
to generate Web photo galleries
using HTML or Flash gallery
styles. You’ll find that
the Web module options give
you full control to modify
and create your own Web photo
galleries. This screen shot
shows a preview of the final
shortlist of shots, displayed
using an Airtight PostcardViewer
gallery style. The preview displayed
in the content area actually
shows you a Web browser view
of a fully coded Web site. When
you are happy with the way the
site looks, you can click the
Upload button to upload the
complete site files and folders
to a preconfigured server address
(which can be specified in
the Upload Settings panel).
You will need to configure the
FTP settings for a server only
once and add these settings
as an FTP preset (Figure
1.21). Once you
have done this, it is an
easy process to upload new Web
photo galleries to a saved favorite
server location. Web galleries
offer a great way to share
photos with friends, create
portfolio presentations, or,
as shown here, provide clients
with an overview of the best
photos from a shoot.

When you select one of the Flash templates, Lightroom checks to see that you have the latest Adobe Flash Player installed. If you don’t, it will provide a link for you to install it.

Making a final print

To make a high-quality print
output, you can start by selecting
one of the default single-page
templates and customizing the
settings to suit the paper size
you will be using. Depending
on how you want the image to
appear on the page, you might
want to click the Page Setup
button to configure the printer
for landscape or portrait printing.
In the Print Job panel, you
will want to disable the Draft
Mode Printing option, and in
the Color Management section,
select a profile that matches
the printer and print media
you will be using. If you don’t
see the profile you are looking
for listed here, you can select
Other from the Profile pop-up
menu to browse the system Profiles folder.
In the screen shot shown here,
I selected a known profile for
the printer/paper combination
I was about to print to, selected
the Relative Rendering Intent,
and set the Print Sharpening
to Standard and for Glossy media.
The Print Settings would also
need to be configured for the
correct media paper setting
with the printer color management
turned off. All I had to do
then was click the Print One
button to bypass the system
Print dialog and make a finished
print.

As you create custom print settings, these can be saved as user print templates. To update an existing template, hold down the Cntrl key (Mac), or hold down the right mouse button (both Mac and PC), select a print preset, and choose “Update with current settings” from the contextual menu. This saves the Page Setup and Print settings to the print template. This can really make printing a lot more foolproof. After you have saved all your print settings to a template, there is no need to reconfigure them the next time you select that particular template.

Exporting the edited photos

The Export command can be
used whenever you wish to
apply the Lightroom settings
to an image and export a photo
(or collection of photos) as
a JPEG, PSD, TIFF, or DNG file.
To export from Lightroom, make
a selection of photos and choose
File → Export
(or click the Export button).
In the Export dialog, choose
which folder the images should
be exported to, how you might
want to rename them, and
the file format you want the
files to be in. In this example,
I selected the For E-mail preset,
which can be used to prepare
low-res versions of the master
photos using the sRGB color
space at an appropriate size
for sending by e-mail.

Note that when the TIFF, PSD, or JPEG options are selected, you can choose which RGB color space to use, constrain the pixel dimensions, and set the pixel resolution for the exported images.

NOTE

The File Settings section now includes an option to include video files in an export. This will simply export any selected video files in their original format. You can also export all image files in their original file formats. In fact, this is the only way you can export imported CMYK images.